When Hamas militants led a deadly cross-border assault on October 7, 2023, they sparked a war with Israel and devastated Gaza. They also triggered shockwaves that reshaped the Middle East in unexpected ways.
Powerful alliances were upended. A long-established “red line” that should not be crossed has been crossed. Decades of dictatorship in the heart of the region have been wiped out.
Fifteen months after the October attacks, with a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas set to begin on Sunday, here’s a look at how the region has fundamentally changed.
Israel
Although Israel reasserts its military superiority, it could face significant diplomatic and domestic costs.
The country’s leaders treat the Hamas-led offensive as an existential threat and are determined to defeat Hamas and weaken Iran, its main backer. Israel not only succeeded in weakening Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but also decimated the Shiite group Hezbollah in Lebanon, dealing a major blow to Iran’s Middle East alliance network.
Closer to home, and in the realm of world opinion, Israel’s successes have become more ambiguous. Although the attack on Gaza significantly weakened Hamas, it did not destroy it, as the government had promised.
Israel’s economy has been battered by the war, and the country’s polarized politics, briefly overlooked when the war began, appear to be back in trouble. The country’s international standing has suffered, and diplomatic goals such as normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia are under threat.
Those dynamics could shift again with Monday’s inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump, who in his first term will push to normalize relations between Arab states and Israel and aim to revive those efforts. There is a possibility.
In the long term, a generation of young Lebanese and Palestinians traumatized by the death and destruction that Israeli shelling has brought to their families and homes predicts what threats Israel may face. That is difficult.
Hamas
Hamas and its leader at the time of the October 7 attack, Yahya Sinwar, had hoped to spark a broader regional war between Israel and Hamas’ allies. However, the group could not predict how the conflict would end.
For Palestinian civilians, the future is bleaker than ever.
Israeli shelling and the invasion have forced nearly all Gazans from their homes and killed more than 45,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, which do not distinguish between civilians and fighters. Israel reduced vast areas of the enclave to rubble.
Although Israel killed Mr. Sinwar and other top Hamas military and political leaders, and the group’s popularity among Gaza residents waned, U.S. officials say it has lost nearly as many people as Hamas has lost in more than 15 months of fighting. It is estimated that the same number of fighters were recruited.
Still, its surviving leaders may claim its survival is a victory.
Israel insists Hamas cannot rule the enclave after the war, but has resisted calls to develop a plan for the post-war Gaza Strip. Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia have now stated that they will not normalize relations with Israel unless Israel commits to a path to establishing a Palestinian state.
Lebanon
Hezbollah, once the crown jewel of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, has collapsed and its grip on Lebanon has weakened. But the Israeli invasion and shelling have left Lebanon facing billions of dollars in rebuilding costs amid a pre-war economic crisis.
Hezbollah, once Lebanon’s dominant political and military force, has suffered a dramatic reversal of fortunes since its 2023 attack. Israel has killed most of its leaders, including Hassan Nasrallah. Its patron, Iran, was weakened. And supply routes through Syria are in jeopardy. More broadly, the group’s core promise to Lebanon, that Lebanon alone can protect it from Israel, has been abandoned.
A years-long political deadlock, largely blamed on armed groups, eased enough this month to allow Lebanon’s parliament to elect a new president and appoint a prime minister backed by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
Despite the blow, Hezbollah is still able to muster thousands of fighters and also receives support from Lebanon’s large Shiite Muslim community. It may still be possible to find a way to rebuild within Lebanon’s unstable political system.
Syria
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime last month was one of the most dramatic and unexpected outcomes of October 7, dismantling a brutal dictatorship. However, the inevitable chaos that followed created the conditions for new power struggles.
For nearly 13 years, al-Assad has largely suppressed an uprising against his family, which has held power for five decades, with support from Russia, Hezbollah and Iran.
But with Russia focused on the war in Ukraine and Iran and Hezbollah reeling from Israeli attacks, the Turkish-backed Islamist-led rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham sensed an opportunity. They swept across Syria and overthrew the government within days.
With Iran and Russia at a disadvantage, Turkey is now well placed to play a vital role in Syria. The Russian government wants to keep some of its navy and air bases, but the outcome of negotiations with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is unclear.
Meanwhile, the United States maintains a small military presence in Syria to fight the Islamic State terrorist group, allied with Kurdish-led forces that Turkey views as an enemy. Israel has occupied Syrian territory near the Golan Heights as a buffer zone and is carrying out large-scale airstrikes against suspected Syrian military and weapons targets.
Syria’s neighbors and European countries hosting millions of Syrian refugees are watching closely to see whether the country can achieve stability or descend into violent chaos again.
Iran
Iran’s powerful network of regional alliances would collapse, leaving the country vulnerable and potentially providing an incentive to build nuclear weapons.
Iran has long been considered one of the most influential powers in the Middle East, but it has been significantly weakened by the reordering of the past 15 months. It has effectively lost much of its once-powerful Axis of Resistance, a network of allies it used to counter U.S. and Israeli influence.
Its closest partner, Hezbollah, is currently too weak to pose a serious threat to Israel. And with al-Assad’s expulsion from Syria, Iran lost influence in a country that provided arms and a vital supply line for militants.
The red lines that had previously kept the region from all-out war have been erased. Iran and Israel have been conducting direct airstrikes against each other since Israel assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh while he was in Tehran.
It is unclear where exactly it will go from Tehran. A weakened Iranian government, feeling increasingly vulnerable, may be forced to weaponize its decades-old nuclear program. U.S. officials have warned that it may only take weeks for Iran to enrich uranium to bomb-grade levels.
